Transportion of equipment such as tractors, backhoes, excavators and bulldozers often requires that the equipment be loaded onto a trailer. Rolling equipment onto or off a trailer involves consideration of, among other things, the height of the deck of the trailer, the angle of the ramp, the size or weight of the equipment or the amount of space available to unload the equipment.
Equipment is often provided with its own independent drive means in order to move the equipment, including conventional wheels and drive tracks.
Trailers designed for transporting equipment require compatible support structures such as axles, wheels and related components. Replacement of conventional trailer axles typically requires that the trailer be out of service to allow lifting of the trailer and replacement of the axle structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,299,259 to MacKarvich discloses a conventional torsion axle assembly having a spindle, a torsion arm and a torsion bar. The '259 patent teaches readily removable, universally mountable spindle axles. As shown at FIG. 5 of the '259 patent, commercially practiced axles are mounted under the trailer frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,287 to Henschen discloses an axle for a vehicle with first stage and second stage torsion shafts and with an axle tube extending the full width of the vehicle with wheel assembly connection assemblies at each end of the axle.
To limit the risk of accidents during operations, equipment often comes outfitted with a set of integral stabilizers, which are a set of support arms that engage the surface of the ground below the equipment and stabilize or suspend the equipment off of the ground, thereby increasing lateral support of the equipment during operations and limiting overturn moment of the equipment.